


We Flounder, We Fall

by MintSauce



Series: The Halfway House [11]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, slight trouble in paradise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:08:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3752146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MintSauce/pseuds/MintSauce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It can't always be such a smooth ride. Ian just wants to go on a date. Mickey wants to do anything but.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Flounder, We Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last one, since I'm about to get off the ferry. Hope you all enjoy the sudden influx. I'll try to write the other few ideas I have!

“Will you stop fucking bouncing?” Mickey snaps with no heat in it whatsoever.

            Ian is walking beside him, although walking would imply he wasn’t bouncing around like a fucking toddler hyped up on candy. It was ridiculous.

            “But Miiiick,” he whines. “I got my _cast off!”_

            Mickey rolls his eyes. “Congratulations Tiny Tim, but I swear to God if you don’t walk normal, I’ma break it for you again!”

            Ian scoffs and nudges Mickey with his shoulder hard enough to have him almost toppling into the road. “No you won’t,” he laughs and Mickey really wishes he wasn’t so right.

            When did he stop being scary?

            “Ay, where are we going?” he asks when he realises they’ve missed the street they usually turn down to get home.

            Ian smiles. “Duh, we’re going on a date, Mick.”

            Mickey scoffs. “Why the fuck would we do that?”

            “Maybe because we’re a couple and couples do things like go on dates!”

            Mickey stops, crosses his arms over his chest and scowls. “Gallagher, I ain’t going on no faggy ass date with you. Let’s just go home, watch a movie, order take-out. The usual.”

            Then he wouldn’t have to deal with assholes crashing Ian’s idea of a date because they’re homophobic dicks who can’t learn when to shut their mouths. He’s not ruining them with that experience, he doesn’t want to. It’s as simple as that.

            Besides, they go out. They eat together, they do other shit together. They don’t just stay holed up in the apartment all the time. But _a date_. That has implication. That has expectations that Mickey doesn’t know how to meet.

            “Fuck you,” Ian spits. “Maybe I don’t want the _usual_. Maybe I want my boyfriend to come to dinner, hold my fucking hand and actually show he’s not ashamed of me for once in his life.”

            Mickey laughs, harsh. How did it get this far? How did it come to this so suddenly? They were happy ten seconds ago, Ian bouncing and Mickey rolling his eyes, pretending to be annoyed.

            “Go find some other fucking faggot if you want that shit,” Mickey says. “Because it ain’t happening. Get that through your thick skull, Gallagher!”

            Ian’s face twists into that horrible expression that belies just how furious he’s starting to get. He shoves Mickey, teeth bared. “Maybe I will,” he spits and then he’s gone, storming off down the street and Mickey is turning in the other direction, walking back to their apartment, alone.

            When the hell is Gallagher going to get it through his head? Mickey isn’t what he wants him to be. He can’t be that perfect boyfriend. All he can be is _the usual_. Mickey isn’t fancy dinners and sweet kisses in public places. Mickey is a rough dirty fuck and watching a movie with a beer, curled up in the safety of their apartment.

            Mickey is the person people hide away, that they’re ashamed of.

            Ian’s the one everyone wants to show off.

            He slams the door of their apartment behind him, grabbing a beer from the fridge and chugging half of it in one go. Sometimes it’s like Ian has no idea how Mickey changes for him. He says _I love you_ and doesn’t run from sappy, stupid compliments. He goes to stupid, work picnics when he doesn’t want to and let’s everyone judge him just because it’s what Ian wants.

            He fights against his natural instincts again and again just to keep Ian happy, but it’s like Ian doesn’t see that in so many ways, Mickey’s drowning here. There’s only so many ways he can change and adapt so suddenly before he starts to flounder. And Mickey is well and truly floundering right now.

            He just wants Ian to understand that he’s trying. He just wants Ian, Ian and their little life that they’ve made here and he wants it to all be enough. _He_ wants to be enough. But he knows that he isn’t.

            He won’t ever be enough for someone like Ian. Ian who’s not ashamed and who is amazing and beautiful and _good_ at the core of it all.

            Mickey wants to be worth it, but he isn’t.

            He wasn’t worth his mother’s time or love or effort and at the end of the day he won’t be Ian’s. Ian may not look at it like that, but Mickey knows there’s a good reason that his family hate Mickey. And Ian will wise up to that eventually, he will. How could he not?

            He drinks enough beer for his head to feel fuzzy and chases it down with some of the whiskey Ian doesn’t think he knows is hid at the back of one of their cabinets. _Their_ cabinets. Everything here is theirs. Everything they’ve built around them is from the two of them.

            How is Mickey supposed to let any of this go?

He doesn’t want to let any of this go.

He falls over onto his side, knees hugged to his chest and eyes screwed shut so that he doesn’t have to look at all the things he’s going to lose. Because this is it, isn’t it? He’s finally messed this all up. He’s finally going to lose Gallagher, lose _his_ Gallagher and be well and truly alone.

It’s not even the loneliness that’ll kill him. Mickey’s not necessarily scared of being alone. But he’s scared of being without Ian.

How is he supposed to do that?

He doesn’t want to.

“Oh Mick,” Ian says when he comes in hours later and finds him there.

It’s hard to still be angry when he finds Mickey looking like he is. Like he’s lost and he knows no one is looking for him. Like he’s given up hope. It’s hard to think it’s all over a date that Ian hadn’t even really been desperate to go on in the first place. It had been the idea of it. He’d wanted Mickey to not be ashamed of him, to be willing to go out in public with him, hold his hand, show everyone that he loved him.

He’d known Mickey would turn him down, but he’d thought…

It had more been how he’d done it. How vehemently. Like there would never be any chance of it, not even the slightest.

He’d thought that realisation would mess him up, but coming home now, he doesn’t know how it seems to have ruined Mickey all the more. He knew he’d come home to find Mickey had helped himself to a handful of beers, but he didn’t think he’d see the tears on his boyfriend’s face.

“Mickey,” he says, crouching in front of him and reaching out to touch Mickey’s face.

Mickey’s eyelashes flutter, beautifully dark against his pale cheeks. His eyes are red when they meet Ian’s and his breath wobbles slightly when he finally focusses on Ian’s face.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out and it makes Ian crumble inside. The headspace Mickey must have gotten into for an apology to trip off his tongue so easily. He’d realised a long time ago that he had the power out of everybody to break Mickey, just like Mickey did him. He hadn’t thought he’d ever actually do it. He never wanted to actually do it.

Ian cups his face, wants to tell him this, wants to make him understand, but Mickey’s speaking again. Just as ruined sounding. Just as heartbroken.

“I’ll be better,” he says. “Don’t leave me. Ian… don’t –”

“Oh Mickey,” Ian says again, moving up onto the sofa and pulling Mickey against him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I would never. Mickey, I wouldn’t. You have to know I wouldn’t.” He holds Mickey to his chest, presses kisses against his face, tasting the salt from Mickey’s tears on his lips.

_How did it get to this?_

“I can’t be without you, Mick, I thought you knew that,” he says. “It was just a fight. It doesn’t even matter. I don’t need dates, or romance or anything like that. I just need you, Mick. I was just being stupid. I promise. You’re enough, Mickey.”

Because Ian knows that’s the problem. He knows that that is the bit that Mickey never believes. He keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Ian to walk out on him. Ian blames his mother, blames her for wanting Mandy but not Mickey.

He knows this is where the whole attitude in the Halfway House was born from. Before, when they were younger, he just thought Mickey was being smart, that he knew how to beat the system. He knows now that really, Mickey had just worked out the easiest way to not be disappointed. If he was the one leaving, he couldn’t be left. If Mickey didn’t get attached, he couldn’t get hurt.

But Mickey got attached to him; and he’s still waiting for Ian to prove his theories and his caution were always right.

            He’s still waiting and Ian doesn’t know how to convince him that he needs to stop. Because he’s waiting for something that would never come.

            “Fuck, Mickey,” he says. “I don’t know how to show you. You’re it. I’m not leaving. It’s always going to be you and me, no matter what happens. I mean, _shit_ , I’d marry you. I’d do anything for you. I’d do anything, but I wouldn’t leave you. Mickey, are you listening to me?”

            He tilts Mickey’s chin up, makes him look at him.

            “You’re stuck with me. Until I die.”

            Mickey nods, minutely, but it’s still there. He curls himself back up against Ian’s chest, fingers worrying at the worn fabric of his t-shirt and breath slowly evening out into something more natural.

            Ian knows he hasn’t convinced him. He knows he probably won’t ever convince them. Even old and grey and with bits sagging that shouldn’t, Mickey will still probably be waiting for Ian to leave. It just means that Ian has a whole lifetime to keep proving he won’t.

            It’s a good thing he’s more than willing.

**Author's Note:**

> Am still themintsauce. You still aren't talking to me on tumblr.


End file.
